


Apricity

by StairwellWit



Series: Salve [1]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: James is selfish but so is Q, M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2018-11-29
Packaged: 2019-09-02 02:04:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16777456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StairwellWit/pseuds/StairwellWit
Summary: You realize you're right and proper fucked. He's ruined you. You'll never taste anything as romantic as stale tea and bloody teeth.





	Apricity

Q's glasses are missing and he says, "You'll never pull off red," as he dabs the blood off your mouth. 

You're drunk, have been drunk. For days, maybe longer and the wet flannel would be cold if your face wasn't numb. 

Q is in a shirt you don't ever remember giving him, this and his bare legs are enough to make your stomach twist. The rare sleep you disturbed is obvious in pillows under his eyes but you lack the decency to care. Selflessness has never been a suit you've worn well and saying sorry is equally as ill fitting. What you do say is, "I'm a mess." Which is the closest thing to an apology as you ever get, and is significantly more honest. What you'd rather say is 'I came back didn't I?' but doesn't that just make it sound like you did him a favor when honestly you should have the decency to stay dead for once. 

He presses your split lip a little too hard and replies. "It’s all messy: the hair, the bed, the words, the heart. Life.." 

To which you just say "Sweet talker."

Half because you're not sharp enough to make a decent counter. Mostly just pettiness because you know he's quoting things you aren't read enough to recognize.

So instead of cleverness, you give him snark.

What you really want to tell him is: he's stunning. 

It's small things that get to you with him.

Like the pulse in his throat you want to press your thumb into. Or the hallow ground between his hips. The scar by his navel. The soft places where his skin is too thin. The way his back creaks; brittle like book spines when he moves. 

Your brain is swimming and the remaining alcohol on your system is the only thing holding a migraine at bay. 

On top of all this you really, really, don't remember giving him that shirt. But you're jealous of the way the collar is caressing the his clavicle, licking gooseflesh into his skin. 

You want to tell him all of this when he stops for just a moment to drink old leftover tea. You won't though. Just the same as he won't ask you why you're bleeding and shitfaced in his flat. Again.

Either because he knows better or just plain already knows. From the robbery you stopped on the other side of London to the thoughts that tap the inside of your skull. Witch fingers on window panes. He has cameras everywhere, why not there too. 

All the same, knowing or not, once the gash is cleaned he puts the flannel aside and replaces it with his lips. 

The grains of sugar from his cold tea grind into your cut viciously. It burns and scrapes, splits what small bit had started to scab. All around it's exquisite. 

Lovely like the busted capillaries leaking under the skin on your cheek, a swollen gouache he drags his thumb over. Just this side of too hard, grounding you. Because he knows you're a fucking wreck of a creature. He fed you once and now can't stop you from coming back. 

But more often than not he is the only place you remember. You come to him even before you come back to your body. 

Maybe this is pity on his part, maybe it's love on yours.

Maybe it's more along the lines of having a very loyal dog with a gun and license to kill. 

You're not sure you'd know the difference anymore.

That you may not care either way. His tongue against your busted lip stings fiercely and you realize you're right and proper fucked. He's ruined you. 

You'll never taste anything as romantic as stale tea and bloody teeth. 

When he finally pulls back, his lips are a patina of you.

Not until he's moved to the cut on your temple do you remember why you broke in to begin with. When you were a little more drunk, a little less tired. What you meant to ask, what you need to know is, "Do you hate me?" 

It sticks odd to your teeth. Woolish and tacky. You can't say the words have ever left your mouth.

Out in the open it seems now a shallow concern. You're almost embarrassed. 

Whether he does or he doesn't you're not sure why it mattered so much earlier. But a bottle of Scotch and three fist fights into the night, it had seemed paramount at the time. 

Somehow he doesn't seem alarmed at the question, his hand doesn't even pause. This seems to have become the nature of your relationship. You running rampant and him mopping up the stains. You wonder what you did to deserve him. When exactly you and him became a collective, proper noun. An understanding you didn't see coming. 

You wonder if it happened the same time you don't remember giving him that shirt. 

He still hasn't answered. 

He takes his time with his task. Plasters the wounds on your knuckles. Undoes your tie and the first two buttons on your shirt to press a kiss unheeded to your neck. Then he tips back the rest of his tea, a thin red grin left smeared on his mug to match the one he left on your throat, your soul.

Only once hes licked the last of your blood from his lower lip does he answer, "Just enough to get off." You nearly have forgotten what question he was even answering.

When he stands your old button down hangs lewdly short of appropriate on his thighs. He leaves you sitting in his chair, bruised and poor postured. Empty and cold as his tea mug. Your knees are chilled where his had dug into them for the better part of an hour. He doesn't come back to check because he doesn't have to.

You both know full well you'll follow him. It's not a question, the next line of events. It's a given and you want to think it's necessity on both your parts. 

He'll ignore you, wadded in the blankets, until you're naked under the comforter sharing one pillow too small for both of you. 

You both know how this goes. You don't need to ask.

You'll bleed on his sheets and he'll kiss you sober. So lucid you feel the chipped tooth you left on Clerkenwell, your jammed ankle. 

Q is missing his glasses, the rare sleep you disturbed is obvious in the pillows under his eyes. You can only see this in the dark because your noses are touching. He runs his thumb over the split in your lip, reopening it, and says, "Really, James, you look bloody awful in red" 

The shirt you don't remember giving him is wadded in the floor, his back pops, your joints wheeze, and you both ache beautifully in your own mortality.

**Author's Note:**

> "It’s all messy: the hair, the bed, the words, the heart. Life.." - William Leal 
> 
> Inspiration for this came from Trigger Happy Jack by POE


End file.
